Waiting on a Miracle
by lovablegeek
Summary: The thing about Mark is that he’ll believe anything—until he’s forced to give it up. MarkRoger. [One shot]


Written for speedrent challenge #51 at LJ. I meant this to be relatively short genfic… Obviously it's not. But I'm still rather fond of it.

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The thing about Mark is that he'll believe anything, believe _in_ anything. I used to think he was just gullible. Anything I told Mark, he would believe, no questions asked. It wasn't until I saw him starting to lose his belief in things that I realized he didn't _have_ to believe—Mark believed because he wanted to.

Hell, when I met Mark the kid still believed in God. I honestly don't know how, with all the shit he'd seen in his life even at that point, things I didn't find about until later. Losing his girlfriend, two suicide attempts before I even met him, an asshole for a father who ignored him more often than not, and being tormented at school on a daily basis… Well, the first two I knew about fairly early on, and the very last one I could do something about, but… Still. I was jaded by the age of thirteen. Then again, Mark never gives up on anything until he absolutely has to.

I think I know when he _did_ stop believing in God. I mean, we didn't even talk about it, and it didn't occur to me until later, but I think I'm right, because I do know that after that day Mark always seemed just a little colder, a little more cynical. He'd lost something, and I can only guess that's what it is. I used to think that was a good thing, but now I'm not so sure.

_It was Cindy who got me into the hospital room, with some lie about how I was their cousin or… something like that. I'm not sure how, because I don't even look like I'm related to either her or Mark, but she did, and I definitely owed her for that. Her parents would have killed us both if they found out, but they never did. _

Mark sat up sharply in the little hospital bed when he saw me come in the room, his pale skin even more white than usual. Still not white enough that I didn't notice the bandage that went all the way up his forearm as he braced himself against the bed. Just one arm, though, and that struck me as odd for some reason.

"Roger! What—what're you doing here?" Honestly, he looked so surprised you'd think he hadn't expected me to find a way around hospital rules. Didn't he know anything_ about me by then? _

I crossed the room and sat on the bed beside him. He shifted over a little as if trying to avoid touching me. That must have been what he was doing, for one reason or another—on the small bed, he had to be nearly falling off the other edge in order to not_ touch me. I pretended I didn't notice. "Your sister," I informed him with a grin, "is an angel. So if anyone asks, I'm your cousin." _

Mark blinked at me, eyebrows raised in that perfectly incredulous look he manages so well. "Are you serious?"

"'Course I'm serious—the nurses wouldn't let me in otherwise. I mean, maybe it's a little incestuous when you think about it, but…" He rolled his eyes at me, and I leaned in, still grinning, to kiss his forehead.

Neither of us said anything for a moment. I just kept watching him, and he kept his eyes down. Finally, I gave up waiting for him to say something and simply asked the question that had been bothering me since I heard what he'd done. "So… why'd you want to die?" I swear I'm not completely tactless. I've just found that most of the time tact is useless, so most of the time I abandon it altogether.

He still wouldn't meet my eyes, just looked straight at his bandaged arm, resting on his lap. "I don't know," he said, his voice halfway between a whimper and a whisper. "I just… I wasn't…" He kept trying to tell me, but he was crying now and I couldn't understand a word. I scooted across the bed a little and pulled him into my arms.

"Hey, it's alright. I just… wanted to know." I **wanted** to know why he wanted to leave me, but I couldn't ask. I held him for a while, with his tears soaking into my shirt, and after several minutes asked, "Why just the one arm?" Alright, maybe I am tactless. But the other two times he'd tried to kill himself, both of which I'd only heard about, and seen the scars from the first, he'd been more thorough—the first time he'd slit both wrists, even if he had cut the wrong way, and the second time he used pills.

I think he might have smiled, but I couldn't see. I did hear a watery chuckle from him, and he buried his face into my neck so his voice came out muffled. "Well, you know me. Never can finish anything." He wrapped his arms around my neck, clung to me for a minute and whispered more seriously, "I got scared. I figured out… if I'm gone, I won't have you. And then… I just don't think…" He didn't finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant.

For a long time after that, he'd still believe any damn thing I'd tell him, no matter how blatant a lie. I swear, there was a time I could have told him the sky was green and grass was blue and he'd probably have believed it. And then… suddenly… he didn't. Or maybe it wasn't all that sudden, just a gradual lessening of trust as I spent more and more time with April, or using, and lying to avoid telling him the whole truth. I didn't notice until later the look in his eyes every time I lied, and I didn't realize that he knew I wasn't telling him the truth. Then again, how could I? It would only hurt him, after all… Maybe I should have told him, though, because the day he finally called me on it probably hurt more.

_Mark was watching me intently as I walked in—I hadn't expected him to even be awake at 4 AM. He was sitting on the couch, huddled into a little ball on the far end, legs curled tightly to his chest, chin resting on his knees. He looked tiny and fragile sitting there, and for a moment I worried about him—then I noticed the accusing, hurt look in his eyes, and wasn't sure what to think. _

"Where were you?" he asked, his voice soft and too calm. And he was still looking at me, and that look in his eyes worried me for some reason I didn't quite understand myself.

"I was with the band." Automatic lie, didn't even have to think about it. It's nice, to have a story prepared whenever you need it—it might have been more effective I didn't tell him the same story every time, but hell, he believed it, didn't he, so what was the problem? "We had a gig and we stayed out a little late…" I closed the front door behind me and walked past the couch to our room, passing by him quickly. "Please don't start acting like my mother, Mark. It's really not very attractive."

"Roger, you weren't—"

I sighed and paused in the doorway of our room, turning to face him. "Okay, if you're going to get bitchy about it… Look, I promise I'll call next time if I'm going to be home late, okay? Happy?" Usually a sharp remark like that would be enough to shut him up. Not tonight.

"Roger," he said slowly, meeting my eyes steadily. "Where were you?"

"I told you, I was with the band—"

"That's bullshit, Roger." Mark got off the couch and walked up to me, nose to nose—figuratively speaking, at least, since he's a little too short to manage it literally. "Don't give me that lie every single time and expect me to keep believing it. You were with April. You were getting high. You think I don't notice? You think I don't know_? God, you don't even bother to hide the marks on your arms when you come home… Do you think I'm stupid?" His voice was quiet and low—Mark almost never raises his voice when he's angry, and usually he actually gets quieter when he's upset with me. Still, there's a venom in it I don't hear any other time, and that time it was so unexpected that I could only stare at him, for once unable to come up with a lie to cover for myself. _

"Mark…" I began, but couldn't come up with anything else to follow it. He glared up at me for a moment longer, and then stepped around me and into our bedroom. The door slammed shut behind him.

I'm not sure if he's ever really trusted me completely since then, at least not without evaluating every word and second-guessing my intentions. I can't blame him, but I still wish he'd believe in me like he used to. Better for him if he doesn't, though. Everyone who trusts me too much gets hurt, so I've stopped asking for them to.

Mark had always sort of believed in magic and miracles—not in so many words, of course, but you just _knew_ he did, the way he talked, the way he viewed the world… That was my Mark, the Mark I fell in love with. He started to lose that too, bit by bit. I know he used to think that by some miracle I would leave April and go back to him—that was the first little bit of his belief he gave up. Then more and more, gradually, a little piece with every fight we had, every time he'd notice the track marks on my arms and realize I wasn't going to give up the smack, every sarcastic and biting comment I'd make to him, _meant_ to hurt him in a way I never would have before April. By the time I got sick, by the time April killed herself, I think he'd lost that belief altogether.

That one year after we met Mimi and Angel brought it back a bit. The light came back to his eyes, he started acting like _my_ Mark again, the old Mark, even if _I_ wasn't quite myself. He believed in miracles again. Angel herself was a miracle. And Mimi… well, Mimi coming back, even if only for a little while, was some kind of miracle too, or at least Mark thought so. I know he did.

It might be selfish to think so, but I kind of wish he hadn't start believing in miracles again. Because he keeps expecting it again, hoping I'll get better. Hoping I won't die. I never had much faith in anything, so I'm spared that hope, but I worry, for Mark's sake.

_This time it's Mark sitting on the hospital bed, and he's holding me as I wake up. More clinging to me, actually, but I didn't really mind. It's certainly not a bad way to wake up. And at least it doesn't take any lies about Mark being related to me to get him into my hospital room. As interesting as it would be to see Mark trying to pull off a lie like that… I honestly didn't think he could, and without him in the room with me… Well, I would have been very unhappy. _

"Hey," I said softly, twisting a little in his arms to look at him. "How long have you been here?" It kind of bothers me that I hadn't woken up when he came in, or when he climbed up into the bed with me, but I wasn't going to say anything. Mark would just feel guilty, for some bizarre reason I could never understand.

"About an hour. Maybe less." His blue eyes searched my face for a moment, intense, hopeful. I honestly don't know what he expected to see there. "You feeling any better?"

I was tempted to respond with something sarcastic. No, I wasn't feeling better, what did he think? I was dying. But he didn't want to see it, and I wouldn't make him just yet. So I faked a smile and kissed his cheek quickly before lowering my head to rest against his shoulder, leaning comfortably against him. I decided I was going to miss that the most when I was gone, if there was a part of me left to miss anything, just being able to sit there with him and feel him beside me, being able to press my face against his shoulder and breathe in and smell that distinct scent that was Mark_, partially just him and partially his apple-scented shampoo. "A little bit," I said softly, and for once he didn't examine my words for a lie. Mark always believes what he wants to, and doesn't look too closely at that belief for fear it'll fall apart. And this one wouldn't take much to blow to pieces, just a careless word, a close examination of the facts… _

He nodded and wrapped his arms a little tighter around me. "Good. You'll get better and then you can come home..." He was still waiting for some magic recovery. Some miracle that wasn't going to come.

I'm not scared of dying, not for myself. I am scared of leaving Mark behind. I mean… he'll survive. He always does. But when I'm gone, and his miracle doesn't come through, what the hell is he gonna have left to believe in?


End file.
